German Chancellor Scholz sticks to his 'no Taurus for Ukraine' stance

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz once again clearly refused to supply Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine.

"My clarity is there. It is my job as chancellor, as head of the government, to be precise and not raise any misleading expectations. My answers are correspondingly clear," said Scholz at a press conference in Berlin on Monday. He was asked whether he, like Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, sees a missile swap with Britain instead of a direct delivery as an option.

Baerbock had previously described a swap, in which Germany would hand over Taurus cruise missiles to Britain and London would deliver more Storm Shadows from its stocks to Ukraine in return, as an "option." British Foreign Secretary David Cameron did not rule out such an approach, according to an interview with the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper.

Scholz emphasized that he did not consider the deployment of the Taurus to be justifiable, which is why this issue was "neither direct nor indirect."

Ukraine asked for the missiles with a range of 500 kilometres from Germany last May. Scholz first clearly refused the request in October and then again a fortnight ago.

He reiterated on Monday that he did not want to hand over the weapon system to the Ukrainians without German checks on the targeting system for which German soldiers are needed, he believes. That's why he denied the deployment, he said. Scholz has said he fears that Germany could otherwise be drawn into the war.